Health Leaders Discuss Importance of Calcium and Vitamin D, Affirm Value of Research
The Society for Women’s Health Research convened experts on Capitol Hill yesterday to discuss recent results from a federal study to gauge the ability of calcium and vitamin D supplements to help prevent broken bones in women over 50. Initial news coverage said the study found no clear benefits, contradicting long held beliefs and confusing both patients and doctors. Health experts say the study results show benefits for some groups and guidelines for the nutrients remain unchanged.
“The Women’s Health Initiative’s calcium and vitamin D supplemental trial showed that women over the age of 60 had a 21 percent reduction in risk for hip fracture,” said Phyllis Greenberger, president and CEO of the Society. “Women who took a full dose of calcium, as directed by the study, had a 29 percent decrease in risk.”
Despite these findings, many headlines about this federally-funded research trial were negative and misleading.
Breast-feeding curbs obesity in at-risk kids
Women who develop diabetes during pregnancy are liable to have large babies, which in turn can lead to obesity in childhood—but that chain of events may be interrupted if the mother breast-feeds, researchers report.
Diabetes that develops during pregnancy is termed gestational diabetes mellitus or GDM. “In a recent study of infants of mothers who had GDM, we demonstrated that parental obesity and excessive intrauterine growth resulting in neonatal overweight independently contribute to early childhood obesity,” Dr. Ute M. Schaefer-Graf and colleagues explain in the medical journal Diabetes Care.
For their current study, the researchers from Vivantes Medical Center and Charite University Medical Center in Berlin, Germany, examined the association between breast-feeding and being overweight in early childhood in the same group of 324 children.
Low fruit, vitamin C intake tied to asthma risk
People with symptomatic asthma eat less fruit and consume less vitamin C and manganese than people who don’t have the disease, a new study shows.
The findings suggest that “diet may be a potentially modifiable risk factor for the development of asthma,” Dr. N.J. Wareham of the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK and colleagues write in the medical journal Thorax.
Several antioxidant nutrients have been linked to reduced asthma risk, Wareham and his team note, but it is not clear whether each of these nutrients plays a role in reducing risk or if they instead represent an overall healthier lifestyle.
Bird flu not spread on the wings of wild birds
According to a Dutch environmental organisation, the on-going fear that flocks of wild birds will spread the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu through Africa and Europe may be ill founded.
Wetlands International say laying the blame on the wild bird population is possibly an impulsive and dangerous conclusion.
H5N1 has been spreading steadily from Asia to Africa and Europe since 2003 and at least 113 people have died from the strain, which led to the slaughter of more than 200 million animals to prevent what health officials had warned could be a pandemic.
Fifty more deaths in Angola from cholera
According to the World Health Organization (WHO) another 50 people have died from cholera in Angola in the last week.
To date this latest outbreak has killed 1,156 people in the country since mid-February and the epidemic is showing no signs of abating and is in fact still spreading.
The WHO says Angola has reported 30,612 cases of cholera since February and half have been in the province of Luanda.
Labor can be longer for obese pregnant women
Looking for yet another reason to stay svelte? Labor can be longer for obese pregnant women, a new Saint Louis University study finds.
The research, presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in May, finds that it takes obese pregnant women who are given medication to induce labor longer to deliver their babies than women of normal body weight.
The obese women also needed more medication - a dinoprostone vaginal insert - to activate labor, and it took longer for the medicine to start working. The obese women also are more likely to have a cesarean deliver than a vaginal delivery.
Elderly with breast cancer may be undertreated
Women in their 80s with breast cancer tend to receive less intensive treatment compared with their younger counterparts, Israeli researchers report.
“According to our data, most women diagnosed with breast cancer at or after the age of 80, lived more than 6 years after diagnosis,” senior author Dr. Haim Gutman told Reuters Health. “A majority received less than the standard local treatment.”
Less than standard treatment was associated with somewhat increased risk of recurrence, although this “did not translate into statistically significant survival disadvantage,” he added.
Work, motherhood a healthy combo for women: study
Juggling a career along with being a wife or partner and parent may help to keep women healthy, scientists said on Monday.
After analyzing data from a study that tracked the health of Britons born in 1946, they found that women who had multiple roles were less likely than homemakers, single mothers or childless females to report poor health or to be obese in middle age.
“Women who occupied multiple roles over the long term reported relatively good health at age 54,” said Dr Anne McMunn, of University College London.
Exercise, Diet May Protect Against Colorectal Cancer
Voluntary exercise and a restricted diet reduced the number and size of pre-cancerous polyps in the intestines of male mice and improved survival, according to a study by a University of Wisconsin-Madison research published May 13 in the journal Carcinogenesis.
The study is the first to suggest that a “negative energy balance” - produced by increasing the mice’s energy output by use of a running wheel, while maintaining a restricted calorie intake - appeared to be the important factor in inhibiting the growth of polyps, which are the forerunners of colorectal tumors, says lead author Lisa H. Colbert, assistant professor in the UW-Madison department of kinesiology.
For the study, Colbert and her co-authors used mice with a genetic mutation that predisposed them to develop intestinal polyps.
Sunscreen ads not targeting high-risk groups
Magazines aimed at men and parents and families, as well as to fans of travel and outdoor recreation, rarely contain ads for sun protection products, a new study shows.
Researchers note that middle-aged and older men are the group least likely to use sunscreen, while they are at the greatest risk of dying from melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer.
Alan C. Geller of Boston University School of Medicine and colleagues reviewed six years’ worth of issues of 24 popular magazines for groups at high risk of skin cancer, including men, women, teens, parents, travelers and people who enjoy outdoor pastimes such as tennis, running, golf and bicycling.
Surgery helps if even breast cancer spread: report
Surgery greatly increases a patient’s chances of surviving with breast cancer, even if the cancer has spread by the time a woman is diagnosed, Swiss researchers reported on Monday.
Although many women around the world are simply offered what is known as palliative care, to help them live a little longer and make them comfortable while they wait to die, surgery could help them live much longer, the researchers found.
“Based on these findings, we believe that it is time to take a hard look at the current standard of care for breast cancer patients initially diagnosed with metastatic disease,” said Dr. Elisabetta Rapiti of the Geneva Cancer Registry at the University of Geneva, who led the study.
